Principal Full Stack Engineer

About the job

We’re looking for Principal Full Stack Engineers to join us! Our technology teams combine a diverse set of technologies to meet the needs of our users, handling millions of requests a day across over 600 systems. We build these systems with industry standard frameworks and tools, such as React and Angular on the front end and Spring Boot, Cloud SQL and Apache Kafka on the back end. All of this runs on our cutting edge cloud delivery platform, facilitating over 60k releases to production a year.

We’re a close-knit tech community where collaboration and knowledge sharing are at the core of what we do. Regular pair programming, code reviews, and stand-ups ensure that our engineers stay connected and aligned. As a Principal Engineer, you’ll play a visible, strategic role in driving system design and architecture decisions, mentoring team members, and helping our teams deliver high-quality solutions at scale.

You might think that “Autotrader” means we’re looking for car enthusiasts, but that’s not the case. We’re looking for people who are passionate about technology, thrive in a collaborative environment, and have a genuine curiosity about solving complex problems.

What we’re looking for:

• Strong experience working across the stack, from designing scalable back-end systems to developing responsive front-end applications
• You should be comfortable working with Java, Spring Boot and the entire Java ecosystem
• Ability to architect and design complex, distributed systems that are scalable, maintainable, and performant
• Experience with modern front-end technologies (e.g., React or Angular, TypeScript/Modern JavaScript), along with proficiency in building RESTful APIs and web services.
• Deep understanding of cloud platforms, ideally Google Cloud
• Strong knowledge of relational databases (SQL), along with experience working with document-based storage solutions (e.g., MongoDB)
• Experience with Kafka or other event-driven architectures
• A structured approach to development and testing (including Test-Driven Development) with a focus on continuous delivery and automation
• Proven experience leading and mentoring teams, helping others grow technically while delivering high-impact projects

Benefits

We’re offering a salary of £60,000 – £80,000, plus an additional 10% of your salary awarded to you in shares each year. These awarded shares will become yours in yearly instalments over the next three years, and you can choose to either sell them or keep them as shares. And you’ll receive 28 days holiday, plus bank holidays and comprehensive private medical cover.

That’s not all. We have employee pension contributions up to 7%, enhanced family leave provisions, a car salary sacrifice scheme, share-save options, and much more.

We always want to give you the support you need and help prioritise your wellbeing, that’s why we provide access to 24/7 online GP and dentist, as well as specialist support for assisted fertility, gender dysphoria, menopause, period care plans and lots more.

On top of all that, our hybrid model, Connected Working, combines the best of both worlds – office and home working. You’ll have two fixed weekly office days for team collaboration and one more of your choice to suit your work-life balance.

Additionally, we have our remote-first periods at set times during summer and winter. During these periods, you can work remotely anywhere in the UK and from certain locations abroad.